Letters 8-21-13

After reading Joseph Sidor’s letter about the 68th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Japan, I had to reply to this overly patriotic person. The letter was filled with some truth, but mostly with official propaganda; officials who tried their utmost to justify the atomic bombing of Japan. As always the victors write the History books to their liking. The war with Japan was a classic example.

Firstly, Japan sought surrender in the spring of 1945. At that time its Army, Navy and Air Force were already totally destroyed, and with a shortage of raw materials and supplies, and nothing coming in because of an effective blockade, they could hardly carry on much longer. The Japanese contacted several neutral countries to get things started. One of the provisions requested in the Japanese surrender document was to preserve their God Emperor Hirohito, but FDR wouldn’t go for it; he wanted unconditional surrender, which prolonged the war in the Pacific for another six months causing us to lose thousands of American lives unnecessarily. In the meantime we continued fire bombing their defenseless cities at will, killing millions of women and children. The US conducted these incendiary raids mostly on non Military targets (Under International Law this action is considered a war crime).

Harry the haberdasher Truman tried to justify the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by stating we would save a million American Soldiers lives. Historians checked the statistics and found that in both theaters of operation – Europe and the Pacific – Americans gave up approximately 400,000 lost. This after fierce fighting for three and a half years when the axis powers were at their peak strengths. So the estimate of millions of lives that were to be lost in the invasion were for purely propaganda reasons.

Generals Macarthur, Eisenhower and Marshall urged the president not to drop the bomb on Japan and stated emphatically that Japan was finished as a military force. The mad hatter went and did it anyway. This did bring the Japanese to complete surrender, but most of the provisions the Japanese requested were granted in the final surrender document including the preservation of their Emperor God.